Park Geun-hye, Ousted Leader of South Korea, Denies All Charges in Court

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Park Geun-hye, South Korea’s ousted president, arrived at a courthouse in Seoul, the capital, on Tuesday. It was her first trip out of jail since she was arrested on March 31.CreditPool photo by Kim Hong-Ji

SEOUL, South Korea — Park Geun-hye, South Korea’s recently impeached and ousted president, made her first appearance in court on Tuesday, denying all criminal charges against her, as one of the biggest trials in the country’s history began.

Ms. Park, the first former president to face trial in two decades, was indicted last month on 18 criminal charges, including collecting or demanding bribes worth $52 million from big businesses, mostly from Samsung, South Korea’s largest conglomerate.

Ms. Park’s appearance at Seoul Central District Court was her first trip out of jail, where she has been living in a solitary cell since she was arrested on March 31.

She was formally removed from office over allegations of corruption and abuse of power on March 10. She was the first South Korean leader unseated in response to popular demands since 1960, when the country’s founding president, Syngman Rhee, fled to exile in Hawaii amid nationwide protests against his corrupt, authoritarian rule.

On Tuesday, Ms. Park, 65, was handcuffed and looked grim as she stepped off a minibus that had brought her to the courthouse. A uniformed female police officer held her arm and led her into the building. Ms. Park wore a lapel pin with her inmate number: 503.

In a highly unusual move, a three-judge panel later briefly allowed photographers and TV crews into the courtroom to take pictures of Ms. Park sitting in the dock. As she stepped into Courtroom No. 417, her lawyers stood and bowed toward her. She was not shackled inside the court. When the presiding judge, Kim Se-yun, asked what her occupation was, she said, “I am jobless.”

It was another humiliating moment for Ms. Park, once a conservative icon. As president, she had never appeared in public unless stylists had carefully arranged her hair in her trademark updo. On Tuesday, her hair looked disheveled.

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Ms. Park’s supporters waved flags as a bus carrying her headed to Seoul Central District Court. She is the first former president to face trial in two decades.CreditYonhap/European Pressphoto Agency

The country she had officially headed until just a few months ago is now led by President Moon Jae-in, her liberal political adversary. In the presidential election on May 9, Mr. Moon defeated a conservative candidate supported by Ms. Park’s party with the biggest margin since the country introduced popular presidential elections in the late 1980s.

The three-judge panel had already held two preliminary hearings with only prosecutors and Ms. Park’s lawyers attending. With the session on Tuesday, where Ms. Park’s appearance was mandatory, the formal legal arguments officially began over the criminal charges she faced, including bribery, coercion, abuse of office and illegal leaking of government secrets.

“It is an unfortunate scene in our history for a former president to be arrested and stand trial,” Lee Won-seok, the lead prosecutor, said on Tuesday. “But we should establish the rule of law by punishing her illegal activities.”

Ms. Park said “yes” when the judge asked whether she denied all charges against her.

Ms. Park and her longtime confidante, Choi Soon-sil, were accused of collecting or demanding bribes worth $52 million from three big businesses, including $38 million from Samsung. They were also accused of coercing scores of big businesses to make donations worth tens of millions of dollars to two foundations that Ms. Choi controlled.

Both Ms. Choi and Samsung’s top executive, Lee Jae-yong, were arrested and jailed. Their trials started weeks before Ms. Park’s did on Tuesday.

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Ms. Park, left, in court on Tuesday with Choi Soon-sil, right, her longtime confidante. They are accused of collecting or demanding bribes worth $52 million from three big businesses, including $38 million from Samsung.CreditPool photo by Ahn Young-Joon

In a trial that began in March, Mr. Lee, the third-generation scion of the family that runs the Samsung conglomerate and the vice chairman of Samsung Electronics, has vehemently denied the charges against him. He has said that he sought no favor from Ms. Park’s government in return for the money Samsung admitted contributing to support Ms. Choi’s foundations and her equestrian daughter.

But prosecutors said that what the company called “donations” were bribes used to win government support for the contentious 2015 merger of two Samsung affiliates, which they say helped Mr. Lee cement control of the conglomerate.

On Tuesday, Ms. Choi appeared in the same dock as Ms. Park. The court decided to try the two women together. Ms. Choi has been on trial since December.

Ms. Park stared ahead, refusing to greet Ms. Choi as she stepped into the courtroom on Tuesday. Since the scandal broke, Ms. Park has disowned Ms. Choi, insisting that she was not aware of Ms. Choi’s alleged influence-peddling. During her trial, Ms. Choi has remained loyal to Ms. Park, insisting that both she and Ms. Park are innocent.

“I have been close to former President Park for 40 years, and I am a sinner for causing her to appear in court,” Ms. Choi said, choking with tears. But she emphatically denied conspiring with Ms. Park to collect bribes and said she hoped that Ms. Park would clear her name through the trial.

Also sitting in the dock on Tuesday was Shin Dong-bin, the chairman of the retail conglomerate Lotte. Mr. Shin has not been jailed but faces charges of giving bribes worth $6.2 million to Ms. Park and Ms. Choi in return for help in regaining a lucrative government license to run a duty-free shop. (The money was later returned to Lotte.)

If she is convicted of bribery, Ms. Park could face 10 years to life in prison, although her successor has the power to free her with a presidential pardon.

She is the daughter of the former military dictator Park Chung-hee, who seized power in a coup in 1961 and ruled South Korea with martial law and the arbitrary arrests and torture of dissidents before he was assassinated by his spy chief in 1979.

The hearing on Tuesday ended after three hours. The next session was set for Thursday. Ms. Park, handcuffed again, was taken to her cell.